The BBC has a copy of an MP’s letter calling on Brown to step down
And it is reporting that Blears might speak to the media tonight. Stay tuned.
James Forsyth
James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Wednesday
Friends of Darling: He won’t take another job
Nick Robinson has just reported emphatically that "friends" of Darling have made clear to him that it is Chancellor or nothing for him.
Downing Street confirms that Brown and John Reid met last night
Nick Robinson has just reported on the BBC that Brown and Reid met last night. Robinson says that he heard that Brown offered Reid the job of Home Secretary but a Brown aide denies that and says they just talked about Celtic football club. I’m sure Brown—fighting for his political life—has nothing better to do than to invite an old enemy over to talk about Celtic. I aslo have a bridge to sell you. PS I should also say there are persistent rumours that there are two more resignations to come tonight. Update: Robinson is stressing that Reid's office is saying he is not returning to government.
‘She found it too much’
Peter Mandelson, who is spinning at full speed today, has just given an interview to Jon Sopel in which he has said that he spoke to Blears this morning and that she just found the pressure placed on her because of her expenses too much. Mandelson is playing a dangerous game. Blears doesn’t want to have resigned because of expenses: she was trying to send a political message. If Blears feels she is being smeared as a weak woman who couldn’t cope with the media spotlight, she might feel obliged to hit back. The Telegraph also has a leak from the Cabinet Office that Blears did not pay capital gains tax on another property. Again, if Blears feels her reputation is being trashed she will hit back. Also, watch Caroline Flint, Blears’ friend and political ally.
That must have hurt Darling
Peter Mandelson has just been on TV stressing what pressure Smith and Blears have been under because of the expenses story and trying to spin that as the sole reason they have resigned. He was then asked about Darling and his response was that Darling was another person who had found himself in the eye of the storm “fairly or unfairly”. It is hard not to read this as a sign that Mandelson is signed onto the plan to move Darling out of the front line. It really does look as if Brown is going to try and place Balls at the Treasury in the reshuffle. But if he does, it is hard to see how he survives.
Is the letter in the post?
Allegra Stratton and David Hencke have the scoop over at The Guardian: A group of rebel MPs have begun soliciting signatures for a round robin letter calling for Gordon Brown to step down, which they plan to hand to the prime minister after the results of the local and European elections have come in on Monday morning. The Guardian has learned there are reports that the backbenchers think they can reach 70 or 80 signatories, with some claims that the letter could be delivered to Downing Street by the end of today. Some backbenchers have seen the letter and are not signing it on account of a perception that the names already on the list are "too leftwing". The pair report that all this is being done by MPs sending a message to an email address.
PMQs live blog | 3 June 2009
Today’s PMQs comes at an awful time for Gordon Brown. But weirdly if he can make it through this half-hour without being bloodied further, he might buy himself some time. But if Cameron pummels him, he might be weakened even further. It’ll be one of those occasions when one watches the faces of the Labour front bench as much as anything else. Brown starts with the names of those British soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan and with words about the murder of a British hostage by al Qaeda-inspired terrorists. 12.05 Cameron leads on the resignation of Hazel Blears and others. Brown responds by praising the great work of Blears and Smith. Brown accuses the last Conservative government of ‘doubling crime’. 12.
Why Blears jumped at the worst time for Brown
The word in Westminster is that Blears made up her mind to resign when Number 10 started trying to blame her for the leaking of Jacqui Smith’s resignation. It can’t be stressed enough that Blears has chosen to go at the worst moment for Brown. She has resigned hours before PMQs giving Cameron time to prepare his barbs and the day before elections that will go a long way to deciding Brown’s fate. By making the story government chaos not expenses, she is putting the story that boosts the Tories and hurts Labour on the front pages for election day. Now, has anyone seen Caroline Flint, Tessa Jowell and the other members of Women Against Gordon? I wonder if any of them have something planned for Thursday at Ten.
Blears jumps before she’s pushed
The chaos continues: on the eve of the European and local elections and in time for PMQs, Hazel Blears has resigned.
Caught in the shuffle
I rather suspect that Gordon Brown’s fate will be sealed by whether or not he can pull off a successful reshuffle. If he can bind the Cabinet to him, he is probably safe until at least Labour conference. Over the weekend, the assumption was that Brown would reshuffle on Friday. The idea was to move before the potential triggers of the plot—Labour coming third or worse in the Euro elections, the BNP winning a seat in the European Parliament—had happened. It would be hard to see how someone who had taken a job on Friday, could credibly resign it on Sunday night and say that the man he accepted the job from 60 hours earlier must go for the good of the party. The rebels would have been beaten to the punch.
Tuesday
The Guardian calls for Brown to go
Following on from its call for its readers to vote Lib Dem at the European election, The Guardian will tomorrow call on Labour to replace Gordon Brown. In an editorial that has clearly been written more in sorrow than in anger, the paper says: “The truth is that there is no vision from him, no plan, no argument for the future and no support. The public see it. His party sees it. The cabinet must see it too, although they are not yet bold enough to say so. The prime minister demands loyalty, but that has become too much to ask of a party, and a country, that has was never given the chance to vote for him. ... All must agree that the die is cast and a hard judgment made.
Jumping Jacqui
Well, well - what is going on? I locked myself away for a few hours to write a piece and emerge to find that the Home Secretary has resigned. My first instinct was to look for Damian McBride and to check for the availability of Peroni in the Westminster area. But the word is that the news came from Smith’s people. Anyway, I can’t imagine that all this is doing much to help Labour close the gap in the final days of campaigning. Smith’s departure does not leave us much clearer on the shape of the reshuffle. It does, though, free up a great office state for Darling to be shunted into if Brown does decide to move Balls into the Treasury.
We are about to see Brown doing what he does best
Gordon Brown’s greatest political achievement was to be the heir presumptive to the Labour leadership for 13 years. For more than a decade, there was not a day when he was not the favourite to take over once Tony Blair had gone. Brown did this through a whole variety of methods, including plenty of brutal, low politics. But there was a deep tactical sense behind it. He had an ability to consistently outmanoeuvre his internal opponents, to manipulate the Labour tribe better than anyone else. This achievement has been part of the reason why Brown has failed so comprehensively as Prime Minister; it led him to over-develop certain muscles and under-develop others.
ComRes has the Tories down ten to thirty while The Guardian urges its readers to vote Lib Dem and The Independent calls on the Cabinet to dump Brown
A day of political drama has a twist in the tale: a ComRes poll which shows support for the Tories collapsing and Labour closing the gap to eight points. Anthony Wells, an authority on polling. is calling this result “frankly odd” and saying that he’d “be amazed if YouGov, Populus or ICM produced figures to support this poll.” But the atmosphere is so febrile at the moment, that it is hard to be confident in saying which sets of polling numbers are rogue. Another important development tonight is that The Guardian’s leader column is calling on Labour supporters to vote Lib Dem at the European elections. (At the 2004 European elections, with left-wing anger about Iraq at its peak, The Guardian still offered a qualified endorsement of Labour).
Monday
Three disastrous days for Brown
It is worth thinking for a second about how bad the past few days have been for Brown. We have had a poll showing Labour in third and then one with Labour recording the worst rating ever for one of the two major parties. What has, perhaps, caused equal damage to Brown is that he has done four major broadcast interviews—Marr, GMTV, Today and Sky News—and not generated a single positive headline for either himself or the government. Instead, they have all been about whether there are any circumstances under which he would go, emphasising how divided the Labour party is, or about the ethical problems of members of the Cabinet, linking the expenses scandal to Labour.
These polls have Labour doing 50 percent worse than the Tories did in 1997
That Mori poll which has Labour on 18 percent is dominating conversation in Westminster tonight. Coming after the poll at the weekend which had Labour third, it has the speculation up another notch about whether a challenge to Brown might begin to materialise as early as Friday. Putting these polls into perspective, offers no comfort to Labour as Andrew Cooper tells Daniel Finkelstein: “Since the scandal broke over some MPs abusing their system of allowances, Labour’s average vote share in (11) published polls is 22.5%. That’s nearly 10% below – fifty percent lower – than the Tories in 1997. It is more than 5% worse than Michael Foot’s performance in 1983.” If Brown was a Tory leader, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Labour tied with the Lib Dems on just 18 percent in latest Westminster poll
The Labour limbo continues: the party is down to 18 with Mori—level with the Lib Dems. This is, according to Political Betting, a Westminster voting intention poll. The Tories are on 40. I can’t think of the last time one of the big two was in the teens in a Westminster voting intention poll.
There could be utter chaos on Friday
In Westminster, the word is that Gordon Brown will reshuffle the Cabinet on Friday as the local election results come in. The thinking is that this will distract attention from the results, allow Labour to claim that the European election results on Sunday are a verdict on the past Cabinet not this one and, most crucially, to make it harder for any plot to get off the ground. The plan is that Ministers will have been offered new jobs before they know if the plot is on or not and that their self-preservation instinct will lead them to say yes, binding them to Brown. But in practise, there is a chance that this could backfire.
The Sun shines on the Tories
Last week, the Sun’s editorial strongly implied that it wasn’t endorsing any of the main parties for the Euro-elections. The Sun said, “If the established parties have their way, the prospects for change in Brussels vary between fat chance and no chance.” But today, The Sun urges its readers to vote Tory, saying “If you want your vote to count in Europe, vote Tory.” The endorsement is a sign of the increasingly close relations between the paper and the Tories, something that former Sun man Andy Coulson has plated a key role in. All the signs are that The Sun will campaign hard for the Tories at the next election. One can speculate about how much newspaper endorsements matter, whether it really was The Sun wot won it.
Sunday
Darling, Cable for you: Go now
Vince Cable’s reputation might be another over-inflated bubble that will have to burst at some point, but there’s no doubt he’s a formidable politician. Alistair Darling should be extremely worried that Cable is now demanding his scalp because of his property flipping. “When he was accused of ‘flipping’ homes and getting the taxpayer to pay his accountancy bills, I was stunned. I assumed that either a good explanation or a resignation would follow. Neither did. I then assumed that a proper independent investigation would be launched to clear his name. Nothing. Then I heard him on the car radio telling me that all MPs were to blame, not him personally. My wife had to calm me down, otherwise I would have driven into a ditch with rage.
